Bruise & Thorn NYC Reviews and Tickets
About the Show
Production Covid-19 Safety ProtocolsShow-Score Member Reviews (9)
See it if you want to expand your mind seeing LGBTQ+ characters as heroes/heroines trying to make it in Queens while being true to themselves.
Don't see it if you like everything easily explained and obvious. Or are anti-LGBTQ+, shame on you!
See it if you want insight into the queer LatinX community that is good theater rather than a didactic bore.
Don't see it if you need to understand everything that is happening onstage
See it if you'd enjoy a very fun and entertaining play with characters and a milieu not often seen on stage. Excellent cast overall especially leads.
Don't see it if you'd be bothered by a very queer focus and setting. Though flawed, the play highlights a new (to me) playwright that I look forward to more
See it if Imaginative production values entice you. The roosters are fantastic! The plot offers wild surprises as do the characters
Don't see it if you require consistency. It opens with a hyper realistic scene but ends as a fantasy. One of the leads is often difficult to understand
See it if What is Realness? Realizing that they're in poverty with slim futures or defying the gravity of society's rules and binary boxes?
Don't see it if More experimental, plot's not really tied to reality, subplots don't all lead somewhere, some confusing parts. 1.5 hours; no intermission. Read more
See it if into a queer drama with some beatbox rapping and a surprise drag-ball extravaganza
Don't see it if well - this seems confused and confusing Read more
See it if you want an unconventional story about a couple of Nuyorican queer folks in Jamaica; you want to support queer voices of color
Don't see it if you are looking for a fully conceptualized show; the plot was all over the place Read more
See it if You enjoy plays that feel more devised than pre-written. You enjoy free-styling. Want to see queer representation on-stage.
Don't see it if You do not enjoy devised pieces. Read more
Critic Reviews (3)
"Fabulous, fascinating, and flawed comedy...The production benefits greatly from the performances of the two leads...Jiménez has never lacked creative ambition and is going after something important and rare with 'Bruise & Thorn': a depiction of queer life that does doesn't fall back on fussy manners, but looks forward to total liberation...While it seems to be building up to something big, 'Bruise & Thorn' descends into a confusing pageant of vogueing and other queer tropes as the already porous border between fantasy and reality breaks down completely."
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It's a fairy tale, really, albeit one that takes in illegal cockfighting, smuggled hormones, sexual exploitation, and a couple of murders -- including one by animal stampede -- before gliding to a happy ending on the stage of America's Got Talent. If the action is sometimes borderline incoherent -- one of my notes simply states, "What just happened?" -- the playwright, C. Julian Jiménez, and the director, Jesse Jou, have plenty of nerve and the talent to back it up.
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C. Julian Jiménez’s Bruise & Thorn is not for everyone. Older theatergoers may be put off by both the raw language and street slang that they will not know. However, if you want to be aware of what the younger playwrights and audience members are thinking, you cannot afford to miss this over-the-top Queer Ball event. Pipeline Theatre Company’s production has to be seen to be believed.
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